The Despair of "Not.Even.One"

Why do you think that so many people have no peace, why they instead slog through life in despair?
The many reasons we could list generally fall into two categories:
1.  Despair is the response to our own shortcomings.
2.  Despair is the response to events we cannot control.

We are going to walk through Romans 3 this morning, a chapter that contains some of the most-often quoted verses for the Bible.
It is here we find despair's antidote.

Paul has just finished lambasting the Jews, destroying their belief in their own superiority.  I can imagine that they are floundering in despair, having had their "supports" kicked right out from under them.  This is reflected in verse 1, where Paul asks the obvious question:

"What's the advantage in being a Jew?"

I want you to imagine someone coming along, coming to your congregation and telling you that some major tenet (or tenets) of your faith are worthless.  That's about how these Jews felt.  It is how all people, with an established "religion", feel when they are slammed in the face with the brilliance of God's true salvation.  It is not found in "religions" or in the keeping of a bunch of rituals.

Rituals, unless grounded in an already settled salvation only serve to distract from the truth.

Paul goes on, then, to tell the Jewish Christians that the number one advantage to being Jewish is that God entrusted to them the writings of the Law and the prophets, writings which served several purposes.
1.  The Old Testament writings revealed to the Jews the nature of God, "who He is", insomuch as they could comprehend.
2.  The Old Testament writings revealed to the Jews the centrality of faith (although a lot of them missed this key teaching), and to expose the human impossibility of perfectly keeping the whole Law.
3.  The Old Testament writings showed the Jews excellent rules for "clean" living.  These kept the Jews a physically strong and healthy people, one of the key factors in their enduring as a people (although scattered) until this day.

Those are just a few, key purposes.  It's little wonder Paul listed the Scriptures as the number 1 advantage being a Jew.

However, when it comes to earning a righteous, holy standing before a holy God - - that is, taking care of our own "sin problem" - - we are all on equal footing.  Busted.  The Jews' involvement with God's revelation did not serve then, nor does it serve now, to make them right with God.  Jew or Gentile, we are all alike under the crushing burden of our sin, all despairing in the same sinking boat, apart from the salvation of Jesus Christ. Without Him - - -

"There is no one righteous, not even one;

There is no one who understands;

There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away,

Together they have become worthless;

There is no one who does good,

Not even one" 

Romans 3:10-12

NIV

Here, Paul quotes Psalm 14:1-3 and 53:1-3, catapulting the Old Testament into the New, to hammer home the truth: works-based salvation is totally ineffective in pleasing God.

Fortunately, God did not leave us there, to wallow in our despair.  Are you ready?  Here's hope!
Here's grace!  Hallelujah!  God's perfect grace, to our rescue!

21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

Romans 3:21-26  The Message

This is the central message of Romans.  This is the heart of "the gospel".  God put His love on the line for us, by giving His Son in sacrificial death, while we were no use whatsoever to Him. Everything else in the letter to the Romans is reiteration of this passage.

The despair of Not.Even.One. is answered by the pure gift of The.One.And.Only!

Our closing prayer today will be from Psalm 86:12-13 (NIV).

12I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

13For great is your love toward me;

you have delivered me from the depths,

from the realm of the dead.

Rich, Pretty People

...who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

15Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

Esther 4:14b-16 (NIV)

Last night, I was sitting by a dear friend at a wonderful concert.  She looked at one of the performers and said, "I'd like to hear her story."  Here this woman was, beautiful!  Talented!  She was one of the "pretty people".  

Let me put it to you straight this morning.  There are no pretty people.  Just like we put concealer on our facial blemishes or hair weaves over our thinning hair, much of our energy in "first world countries" goes to concealing our imperfections and hiding our pain.  We may look like movie stars or live like the saintliest of saints.  Don't ever look at another and think, "He has it all together." Even if he or she is a Christian, there is always some measure of conflict or pain. 

The Bible makes it clear that, even Jesus struggled with the burden of living the life of a human being.  In the Garden of Eden, His agony was so great that He sweat drops of blood!  Besides Him (as if we needed more examples), there is not one biblical figure I can think of who comes off as "Mr. or Ms. All That".  All are flawed.  All have challenges.  Most make terrible decisions at some point.

This is why it is so important for the Body of Christ to live radically, love radically, as The Body of Christ.  So that, from our "royal position", we can serve our fellow man and tell him the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because although all flounder, flop and sometimes fail, there IS a difference between living this earthly life with Jesus Christ or without Him.  Regardless of the obvious issue of going to Heaven or Hell after physical death, there is the issue of the abundant life.

What does it mean to be rich?  It has nothing to do with money.  It has everything to do with abundance, with peace.  It is a wealth only found in the everlasting riches of Jesus Christ, that Prince of Peace, born a lowly Babe in a manger.  It is finding all our needs met by being accepted, forgiven and set free.  This past week, a well-known figure in my home county took his own life.  By all outward appearances, by all worldly standards he was successful and happy; he was "rich". Heartbreakingly, his pain was so great that he saw no other release from it than to remove his soul from this mortal world, in the most violent way.  Such tremendous suffering!

Oh people of God!  Treat every, single person as a bleeding soul.  Even the people of God are often "walking wounded", as opposed to the unsaved, who are the true "walking dead".  We, God's very own beloved, MUST be the bridge between the dying and the King - - whether our brothers or sisters in Christ or those who are still "on the outside of the gates to the kingdom".

In the past I have bought clothes for my sons - - - beautiful, expensive, trendy clothes!  And, I have taken them to a charity with the tags still attached.  They would not wear them.  Beautiful gifts, wasted.  How similar our Savior must feel, to see us wasting our gifts - - hoarding our physical and especially spiritual wealth - - when all around us are suffering people? 

"The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of Heaven is theirs."  

Matthew 5:3 (HCSB)

 Most of the time, being attuned to the needs of others (I started to say "the needy", but we are ALL "the needy") does not call for us to lay down our lives, at least not in the physical sense, as was the case with Mordecai and Esther.  Some have often wondered if they would be willing to make a similarly extreme sacrifice for someone else, what they would do in a "If I perish, I perish" moment.  I have the answer for you:  if you are tight-fisted in the small things, you will most likely be hard-hearted and selfish in the bigger things. If giving yourself away, being others-focused, is not the way you "roll" on a regular basis, your heart will be so hard when confronted with a major sacrifice that its muscle will not be able to respond as Jesus would.  

And, how DID He respond?  By laying down His very life, after living a life of magnanimous giving to others.  May we, His own, do the same.  Because, "for such a time as this..."

Father, open our eyes to the needs of those around us.  May we not stop with the seeing, but move on to the giving of our riches in Your Son, our Savior.  In this way, Lord, we celebrate Christmas, all year long, all our lives long.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas.